Lemon, orange and passionfruit fairy cakes (recipe)

Hey peeps! I hope you are all good. We are off to Kent for the weekend (making the most of the last weekend of National Trust gardens being open) so I have a few random posts for you while I am gone.

The other day I fancied doing some baking for work, and this coincided with having lemon curd left over from macaroons, and receiving a little parcel of oil from Wharfe Valley Farm, including some lemon infused rapeseed oil which I thought would be perfect for baking with.

I also had some passionfruit curd which needed using up as it has been open a while now.

I found a recipe for lemon and poppyseed muffins which needed oil,  in Muffins and Small Cakes, which apparently made 6 large muffins. I adapted it a bit, using more ground almonds and less flour, adding in orange juice, and putting curd in the centre before baking. It made 24 fairy cakes.

Ingredients:

180g ground almonds

130g plain flour

250g caster sugar

1 tbs baking powder

2 medium eggs

60g melted butter

60ml rapeseed oil (I used Wharfe Valley lemon infused oil)

100ml milk

Juice of one orange

Juice and zest of one lemon

Lemon / passionfruit curd (about half a jar)

1 tsp Lemon extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C, and line cupcake tray with paper cases.

Put the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl and mix together.

Melt the butter, and then in a seperate bowl mix together the butter, oil, milk, eggs, orange juice, lemon juice, zest and extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and stir gently to incorporate.

Put a large spoonful of mixture into each cake case (use about 2/3 of your cake mixture). Then put a tsp of lemon/ passionfruit curd in the centre of each cake, before topping with the remaining mixture.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

Leave to cool.

Optional- top with lemon drizzle icing.

The cases with a spoonful of mixture in each one.

I made 12 with passionfruit curd, and 12 with lemon curd.

I baked them in my top oven, as I was making Christmas cakes at the same time, so my normal oven was full. They came out pretty flat- looking more like fairy cakes than mini muffins- ideal for topping with a swirl of butter icing, if you are that way inclined. You could make them in muffin tins and I am sure you would end up with 12 big muffins.

Obviously in this recipe I added lemon juice and zest too, but the lemon oil does smell really lovely, so I am sure this added to the recipe.

On the Wharfe valley website they have a recipe for lemon hummus. I keep meaning to make my own so perhaps I should give this one a go using the oil.

I used the normal rapeseed oil in some pumpkin spiced gingerbread cakes. I made these gluten free, and even though I did add a little more liquid (the Dove’s Farm g-f flour suggests using more liquid) I think I need to add a bit more next time as they were not as moist as usual.

We have also used it in “normal” cooking too, as it is safe for frying with.

They have some lovely looking oils on their website too- perfect if you were making up a hamper for somebody.

Are you a fan of infused / flavoured oils? I have some lovely basil infused olive oil which is amazing for avocado pasta, and that lemon oil really is lovely too. My parents like chilli oil but it is normally too spicy for me!

*I was sent the oil in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.